Collapse Of Bangladesh’s Garment Industry During Coronavirus Leaves Its Workers More Vulnerable Than Ever

Millions of garment factory workers in Bangladesh have been released from work in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, leaving them without income and without choice but to return to cramped homes in slums or villages, without resources to fight the pandemic or even with the basic ability to sustain their lives.

The garment and textile business is the number one industry in Bangladesh, accounting for 80% of the country’s exports. They are the 2nd largest individual country for apparel manufacturing in the world behind China and is where brands like H&M, Target and Marks and Spencer produce much of their goods.

This dangerous cocktail of out-of-work, low-wage workers living in cramped slums without basic sanitation or the ability to isolate, coupled with the lack of income due to being laid off from the factories have the potential to leave the workers in a state of abject poverty and with the threat of an outbreak in this already vulnerable community. A situation which could also prove to be a ticking-time bomb for the country as a whole.

“When you talk about isolation in a densely populated country, it’s a joke,” says labor activist Kalpona Akter. Akter is the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) and is a former child laborer that fights against the exploitation of garment factory workers.

“In other countries people can isolate. Our people don’t have that possibility. Workers live in houses that are a 10 x 10 room where 5 or 6 people live. If one person gets infected in a community, everyone will be infected.”

Akter is right that self-quarantine and social distancing is a near-impossible task for the masses in Bangladesh. It’s one of the world’s most densely populated countries, where 164 million people are packed into 57,000 square miles. That’s a space roughly the size of North Carolina containing half the population of the United States. The capital city of Dhaka, which is about the size of Philadelphia at 118 square miles, is home to almost 21 million inhabitants. Philadelphia, in comparison, only has 1.5 million people. In Dhaka, residents live on top of each other in the best of conditions, and live packed like sardines in the worst of conditions.

“In other countries people can isolate. Our people don’t have that possibility. Workers live in houses that are a 10 x 10 room where 5 or 6 people live. If one person gets infected in a community, everyone will be infected.”

The top priority for the garment industry is to stop the hemorrhaging of the billions of dollars worth of cancelled orders in order to save the workers and the industry which supports them.

“As per the latest report at BGMEA, 1025 factories reported 864.17 million pieces worth $2.81 billion export cancelled,” says Rubana Haq, the President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturer’s Export Association (BGMEA), the governing body of Bangladesh’s apparel production industry. “With so many orders cancelled and on hold and with no visibility of any confirmed direction, we are at a complete loss at this moment.”

Meanwhile, while the factories remain closed, workers return to the villages where they are from or to the slums where they live. In the case of the latter, hundreds upon hundreds of the tin rooms described by Akter line narrow, unlit pathways. Kitchens, which are often open cement shelters whose walls are lined with campsite-like ranges, are shared, as are bathrooms, which are also outdoor cement sheds. In many cases, the bathrooms are without doors. Showers are had and water is drawn from the only faucet in the entire slum, where there is no guarantee the water is without disease or other bacteria.

“As with any other vulnerable populations such as refugees and internally displaced populations, if a virus or disease gets into the population in overcrowded conditions it is likely to spread like wildfire and there is little infrastructure to respond to it,” says Dr. Adam Coutts, a Research Fellow at Cambridge University.

The government has issued a bailout to manufacturing industries, which includes the garment sector, in the sum of BDT 50 billion (roughly $600 million).

“Logically what could be possibly earmarked for us would be around BDT 42 billion, which would provide for one month’s salary for workers, but the logistics through which these funds would be dispersed have yet to be sorted. The modalities of disbursement of the bailout is yet to be drawn in consultation with the stakeholders,” says Huq. “We are hoping it will happen in the quickest possible time and flexible term so that workers can draw their salary on time.”

“As with any other vulnerable populations such as refugees and internally displaced populations, if a virus or disease gets into the population in overcrowded conditions it is likely to spread like wildfire and there is little infrastructure to respond to it.”

“This is the big question: How will the funds get to the worker?” asks Akter in the interview. “Through the factories? And how are they going to pay? Will they be paid in advance? Will be it be equal distribution or not? We don’t have social security system, we don’t have data on citizens. A lot of workers don’t even have bank accounts.”

Beyond this package from the government, there are no other provisions for the workers. “The cruel reality is that the sufferer is our worker, they are the most vulnerable,”says Akter. “The manufactures will be losing profit, but it is the worker who will lose their food.”

Both Akter and Huq, along with the country’s Commerce Minister, Tipu Munshi, are making international appeals to brands asking for financial support to help quell what could be a disaster, and are all aligned in their stances that brands have some obligation to support the workers.

Munshi went on the air with CNBC and asked for support from brands who manufacture in Bangladesh, and Huq did the same through the BGEMA’s channels.

“Gone are the days when a company’s actions stay isolated to a particular market.  When stories and videos travel the world at the speed of a click, a company’s actions anywhere affect their reputation everywhere. There’s a strong reputational, as well as humanitarian, argument for companies to treat their workers with compassion and dignity, regardless of where those workers are located,” says Dr. David Bowen.

Bowen is the former the Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, and was also the Deputy Director of Global Health Policy for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Today, he heads global healthcare strategies for Hill + Knowlton Strategies, and he suggests that, from a communications standpoint, it’s in the best interest of the brands to have some role in providing for workers in the communities in which they operate.

“When stories and videos travel the world at the speed of a click, a company’s actions anywhere affect their reputation everywhere. There’s a strong reputational, as well as humanitarian, argument for companies to treat their workers with compassion and dignity, regardless of where those workers are located.”

“We have to think about the people who made you [brands] profit for years. When they need you, you cannot leave them in a starving situation,” says Akter. “All these years we worked to make your companies so much profit. We did that together. We should be in this together.”

Some of the solutions Munshi, Huq and Akter have suggested to the brands are the setting up of a fund, deferring payment schedules, or at the very least, simply paying for completed product which many brands are now refusing to collect, a point which Huq makes in her video.

“All we are asking from the brands at this moment is to accept the goods which are currently in different stage of production at the factories including finished stock,” says Huq. “Also we urge brands to pay the cost of manufacturing for the goods we have confirmed order for and we have imported fabrics for those but did not start production yet. When the situation improves we can reciprocate to our valued customers to the best possible extent.”

Companies are already responding. In a statement made to Forbes, an H&M spokesperson said:

“We will stand by our commitments to our garment manufacturing suppliers by taking delivery of the already produced garments as well as goods in production. We will of course pay for these goods and we will do it under agreed payment terms. In addition, we will not negotiate prices on already placed orders. This is not only the case in Bangladesh, but for all production countries. We are at this instance intensively investigating how we can support countries, societies and individuals from a health and financial perspective. We hope to be able to communicate more around these initiatives within shortly.”

Smaller local brands and manufacturers have taken matters into their own hands. Saadat Chowdury is the co-founder of the luxury Bangladeshi fashion brand, Zurhem, and has made the decision to pay his 100 or so employees through the end of April, and perhaps longer.

“For people at this level of society, it’s impossible for them to have savings, and if you decide to lay them off, no one is going to hire them for the several months. So how are they going to survive?”

“We take high-skilled and multi-skilled workers and pay them about $300 month, which is more than what factory workers make because of their skill set. We will continue to pay this and keep them for some time after,” says Chowdhury.

Chowdhury also made a public plea through his social media channels urging his friends and colleagues in business to do the same. “For people at this level of society, it’s impossible for them to have savings, and if you decide to lay them off, no one is going to hire them for the several months. So how are they going to survive?”

Compounding the economic issues are the infrastructural and social ones. As of late last week, there was only one medical facility in the entire country capable of testing, which has now been increased to three. According the Minister of Health, Zahid Maleque, the government has been able to procure 250 more ventilators to add to the 29 they had as of last week, bringing the number of ventilators in the country to 279.

In her speech on March 25, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the nation that, “Corona virus spreads very rapidly but it is not fatal. You will get better soon if infected. It is only the weak, elderly people who already have pre-existing conditions that this virus can be deadly.” She also said there are enough stores of food to feed the country although made no remarks on how these resources would be distributed.

The country has been on lock down since March 26, and as of the time of publication, the Bangladeshi government is reporting 48 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 5 coronavirus-related deaths. This is a number questioned by many as it is disproportionately low compared to the population, especially considering the high number of migrant workers that have returned from infected regions.

“Workers in Bangladesh and China who produce goods for the fashion and tech industry face huge social, economic and health challenges in normal times. Now with covid they doubly suffer as global corporations have shut these links down and countries have retreated to putting their head in the sand to deal with their own domestic issues,” says Coutts.

“These workers have been forgotten. The covid crisis really shows how expendable multi nationals and governments consider these workers.”

The article appeared in Forbes magazine on 30 March 2020